


when words are the only thing left

by endlesslytea



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bumbleby - Freeform, F/F, all from tai's point of view, also whiterose, he is doing his best, just some post beacon sadness and regret, mention of team strq, mostly about yang and blake's relationship sorry not sorry, not that bad tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 18:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21324940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlesslytea/pseuds/endlesslytea
Summary: Tai saw his daughters lose everything.He saw their grieve, their anger, and their sadness, and it reminds him of a team that has long ago been torned apart by tragedies and bad choices.With team RWBY separated, words will be the only thing left for him to understand what happened.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna & Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee & Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	when words are the only thing left

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so this is my first fic, and english is my second lenguage so this is probably really bad, but you know what they say "you gotta try it or you wil regret it". I'm guessing someone says that. If you like it be sure to tell me! And if there are mistakes please be kind to tell me <3

Yang was pale, and much skinnier than before she left to Beacon. Tai had always admired his daughter passion for training, and he saw how much stronger she had gotten in the Vytal Festival, but when the sisters came back home, Yang without an arm, Ruby unconscious, and the life they both had been building destroyed, everything started to change.

Tai notice it: even before Ruby left, Yang ate less. She got skinnier, paler, and lost her muscles.

She didn't left the bed the first months, and when she did she stayed in the house. 

Yang was looking a lot like Raven, and that was frightening for Tai. When she was pregnant, she did everything she shouldn't have: eat less, train less, care less. Because Raven simply she didn't care.

And it was horrifying for Tai to think that Yang didn't care for her, or for her life.

He knew a little about the friends she had lost in Beacon. He had talked to Ruby before she left about what happened. It hadn’t been easy. 

“_We lost Pyrra, and… and Penny. And Weiss was taken by her father…_” sobbed Ruby. “_I tried to contact her, but..._”

He hugged her daughter.

“_And then Blake left…_”

Blake.

Yeah, Tai knew that name. He had read it in the first letters from Beacon, saw her on one picture and he heard it coming from Yang’s mouth when she had nightmares. 

He didn't talked about it with his daughters, he limited himself to hear, and to support them how ever he could.

_One was gone, one left, one gave up, and the last one left tried to do whatever was possible._ He almost laughed: what team was he talking about again? His daughter’s or his?

And then Ruby left. And if Yang cared, she didn't show it. In winter she stayed in bed, in spring she got up for the first time.

It was weird. Don't get him wrong, Tai was happy for the first time in a long time, but he didn't understood what happened. One day Yang was in bedroom, without talking, just tuked up in the bed, looking at nothing in particular, and the next she got up and made herself a sandwich. It was a lot. It was amazing.

But it was slow. When Tai went to work, Yang would clean a little, and see the TV. It was better than to stay in bed, but still, he knew his daughter. He had raised her, after all. Of course, Yang was her own person, and he didn't knew everything about her, but Tai knew for sure that what she loved the most was to explore.

Since she was a kid, she would run around the house, claim trees, jump rivers, and when she discovered her semblance, it was impossible to get her to stay put. Tai and Summer had it hard, but then it was only him.

_One was gone._

He saw Ruby face when she talked about her partner, and he got it. Qrow was his, and it had been hard. Difficult to get to know, and hard to make them want to know you. They had become friends after some years, but things happened, and they distanced themselves. Now, it was harder than ever to keep him around.

However, he understood that Ruby and Weiss Schnee's relationship was different from his and Qrow's. Tai hadn’t completely figured it out yet, and he wanted to ask his daughter about it. But then Ruby left.

_The last one left tried to do whatever was possible._

So did Tai. Raven left, Summer was dead, Qrow was nowhere to be found. He did everything he could to raise his daughters, and it wasn't enough. Ruby was braver than him. She was like her mother, thank Gods. In the weeks before she left, Tai saw her train in the snow as she used to do with Yang before they went to Beacon, but now she did it alone. And once she had gone to who knows where, he found the letters. 

Letters to Jaune, Ren and Nora. Letters she tried to send to Weiss, to Blake. The hardest ones were the ones she wrote to Yang. Tai had found them in the trash.

He understood why she left, she was trying to make things better with what she had left.

_One was gone._

It was impossible to talk to Yang about what had happened in Beacon, either before and after the tournament. Tai only had the letters they had sent him when they were at the school, and what Ruby had told him.

He tried to ask directly, and indirectly. But every time Yang would frown and look somewhere else.

One night he went to check on her, and found her sleep. There were traces of tears in her face. In the floor near the bed, there was a notebook. He couldn't help it, and opened it.  
It seemed that it was used to write things of the classes, or at least that was what Yang used it for the first few days. Then, there were scribbles of weapons and grimms, sometimes some jokes or funny things that happened in class.

In some pages there were others people's handwritings. He recognized Ruby's, who wrote and draw different team movements. Some of her things were crossed and corrected by an elegant handwriting.

It seemed that Ruby had started using it a lot for training notes, so when her parts abruptly stopped, Tai assumed that she had gotten her own notebook.

There was a fourth hand writing, much messier than the rest, but with incredible grammar, and it was always correcting Yang’s mistakes. In one page there was a dialogue.

_Heyy_

**We are in class**, responded the messy handwriting. Something told him it was Blake Belladonna's.

_I'm bored_, answer yang with a bright red pen.

**You should be paying attention.**

_Let's play a game._

**No.**

_Come on! I'll ask you questions and you answer. What's your favorite color?_

Something had been crossed out, but then it said: **I don't know, I guess yellow is nice.**

_Yellow? I thought you would say black or violet! I mean that's what you always wear._

**That doesn't mean they are my favorite colors.**

_So why yellow?_

**It's the color of the sun. **

_You are so poetic._

**Shut up. What's your favorite food?**

_PANCAKES. My dad does the best ones! They are out of this world._

Tai could help but smile. He decided tomorrow's breakfast. The conversation continued.

**If you say so.**

This time Yang had crossed something out. It looked like she had really thought about what to say.

_You should come sometime! Maybe for the winter break, you know, to try them out. _

**I would love to.**

Followed by that, the drawing of a tiny heart.

The conversation ended there, but there were more in other pages. Blake’s messy handwriting became more common. Tai also notice that some sketches were from her.

He was now certain that it was Blake, because she only drew her teammates, and never herself. 

Some drawings were fights, probably for tactics. But there were also faces, some Tai didn't know, some drawings of professors (which yang reacted with big "_HAHAHA_"), and some of her friends. There was a full page with their portraits.

The first one was Ruby, and Tai had to admit, Blake's drawing skills, unlike her handwriting, were amazing. It was obvious it was his daughter, however in the drawing she seemed older, and really confident. Another one was of Weiss, as Tai understood, but even when he had been told that Weiss Schnee was hard to get to know and was usually in a bad mood, the drawing showed her with a kind and confident smile.

The last one was Yang. It showed her winking an eye and smiling, the arm that was now gone was up and stretching. The drawing was beautiful, so beautiful that Tai felt kinda uncomfortable looking at it. I was clear that Blake saw Yang as a pretty, strong and confident person.

The last drawing on the page was from Yang, and it was Blake. Even if her artistic skills weren’t as good as her friend's, Yang had drawn Blake smiling (not much) but happy. It said "_you were missing ;)_" at the side.

Tai smiled. 

He continued to look the pages. There were some new class notes, all grammarly corrected by Blake, but it seemed like Yang was doing well in her classes.

He turned the page, and stopped smiling. The Vytal Festival.

There were at least ten pages of preparations and training tactics. They were mostly Yang’s, but some were of the whole team. 

The last note was different. It was Blake handwriting, but the page was stained.

**I'm sorry I doubted you. I realice it hurted you a lot more than I thought. I’m not going to explain why I did, you probably don't really care, but please Yang, believe me when I say that I know you didn't attacked Mercury. I trust you.**

Oh, so they were already there. Tai continued reading, knowing what was coming.

**I know you, even if we haven't been friends for long. I know you would never do anything like that, I understand it now, and I will never doubt you again on that. Yang, you are the strongest person I know, but also the most loyal and honest one. What ever really happened, we'll figure it out together after the tournament. I promise.  
Love, Blake. (We are going to see Pyrra's match, if you feel like coming, I'll save you a spot)**

Tai realized that the stains were tears. He looked back at Yang sleeping, her face both red and pale.

There was one last page written, also with tears. It was Yang’s.

_Why did you left?_ It said.

_What happened? What scared you? That I would be mad? I am now. I hate you. I hate you so much. I need you._

_You should be here. Why aren't you here?_

_You should be here. I need you. I can't do this. I can't._

_Why did you left?_

There had been one last thing written in the page, but it was torn apart.

Tai closed the notebook and put it in the nightstand. Suddenly he stepped on something: a pen. He sighed.

In the bed, Yang moved in her sleep, and Tai roped her, giving her a kiss in the forehead.

The next morning he made pancakes for breakfast. Yang smiled a little and said thanks, but nothing else.

_One gave up._

Tai loved Qrow, he was family. But they had know each other for years now, and they had both been through a lot. They were the only ones left from team STRQ, but since Raven abandon them and Summer died, Qrow had changed. He started drinking, he stop being as funny and joker as he once was. He dedicated his life only to the missions Ozpin gave him. Nothing else.

He gave up. Tai was afraid Yang had given up too.

He did what he could. He tried to give her space, tried to push. Tried to let her suffer in silence, tried to make her talk. 

Yang got better. She put on the arm, she started eating more, she started training again. She gained color and weight. Tai was happy.

But then she left too. She hadn't given up, at least.

The house was quiet again. Even Zwei seemed to be silent. Tai did what he used to do when the girls were at Beacon: not much. But now he did that while being worried.

A letter from Ruby came some days later. Everything was fine, they were at Mistral and she gave their address. Tai groaned, if the letter had came sooner then Yang would know we're to go.

But it didn’t matter anymore. 

He went to work at Signal, he came home, he made food, and went to bed. The next day he would wake up, and do everything again. 

He checked the mail every day, before breaksfast, after coming home and before going to sleep. He sent letters, but never got answers. It was exhausting, and the horrible feeling of one day waking up with strangers at his door telling him that his girls…

He couldn't even think about without his throat hurting.

When Summer died…

He decided to do what Yang had done: putting his mind in other things. So he rearranged the house, put the furniture at the other side of the room, cleaned the windows, made a lot of food that he shared with his students. 

One afternoon he entered Ruby's bedroom with a mop and a bucket full of water. Tai accommodated everything where he thought it went, and shined all the furniture. If Ruby ever came back- correction, when she came back, she was not going to recognize her room as it had never been so organized and clean.

He then went to Yang’s room and did the same. He found lots of used tissues under the bed, her trash full with torn papers, and some books that had been thrown in the back of her closet. He cleaned and put everything in place. However Tai had his doubts with the books of the closet; they were there for a reason, right? 

Finally he decided to leave them piled up in the desk.

When she was about to leave the room with the bucket with dirty water he heard a noise that he hadn’t heard in a long while. He froze.

The postman had left mail.

Tai dropped the bucket and ran downstairs to the front door. The woman was still near when he reached the post box and opened it.

There was only one letter. He grabbed it and opened it without even checking if it was for him.

Could it be…?

But it wasn't. It wasn't neither Yang nor Ruby’s handwritings. He sighed, and felt his throat closed.

He notice then: it was the messy handwriting from the notebook. It was from Blake Belladonna.

Tai couldn’t help it, and he knew it was wrong, but he decided to read it.

**I’m sorry**, it began.

**I’m so sorry, Ruby, Yang. I shouldn’t be writing after all this time, you probably don’t want to know about me. I wouldn’t if I were you.**

**I left because of fear, because I’m a coward, because I thought that keeping you away from my problems was better. I risked it, being closed to you. My past came back, and destroyed everything.**

There were stains of tears in the letter, and Tai’s heart ache with the thought of that girl, the same age as his daughters, crying while writing that.

**I went to my home in Menagerie to see my parents, and Sun followed me. Is because of him that I’m now writing this letter. I realize now that what I did was not right, and I’m going to make it up to you. I swear.**

**First I need to go Haven. I can’t say much, but the school is in danger, and I’m not running away this time. Please, if this letter reaches you before it happens, don’t go. We don’t know how dangerous it could be, but we have a plan.**

**But I promise once that is over, I’m going with you. And then we’ll go to Atlas for Weiss.**

**I’m sorry I let you down. But I’m going to be better.**

**I love you, Blake.**

Tai was crying, and he didn’t know why. Ruby and Yang were not there to see the letter.

_Why did you left?_

He went back inside to Yang’s bedroom. He put the letter above the books.

When the sisters came back, because they had to, they would read it. Tai hoped that it was not too late.

Luckily, it wasn’t.


End file.
